


Shiver The Whole Night Through

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Animal Death, Blood, Hunting, M/M, Mind Games, Sex Dreams, Shapeshifting, injuries, mild dubcon, spookiness in the woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-06 19:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8765749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Ren's always loved hunting, so when he's told his paid time off won't roll over into the next year, he decides to take a week, get his gun and rent a cabin in the woods. But it takes no time at all for the hunter to become the hunted.





	1. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

**Author's Note:**

> _In the pines, in the pines_  
>  _Where the sun don't ever shine_  
>  _I would shiver the whole night through_  
> 
>  
> 
> -American folk song

"You have five paid days off that will not roll over into the new year," Ren is told at the end of October. "Use them or lose them."

Ren has no intention of losing them. He's earned this, yes. Worked like a dog for the past couple months, coming in even when he was sick. Nobody can say he's not here to prove himself. He gives himself the first week of December and plans a week of hunting up in western Maryland for himself. He uses the bonus he got for raising the most money last quarter to buy ammunition and a warm hat and a good jacket. 

Hunting is zen, he thinks, driving up . The way church or running or sex or drinking feel for other people, hunting feels for him. His earliest memories are of sitting still in the tree stand with his father, silent and wishful, looking for animals. "Scare my deer and we'll have you for dinner instead," his dad would joke. It was funny because Ren never did. It would have been less funny if he had. When he got older, he stopped hunting with his dad and went by himself, and since then he has never wanted to hunt with companions. It is purely for himself, his own concentration and his own cunning, his skill alone winning the day. His coworkers say the western part of the state is crawling with black bears.

"They're everywhere," another coworker of his had said, who also hunts a lot. "Watch the moms. A meaner bitch there never was than a mama bear. Reason for that cliche, kid." 

Hunting bears sounds tempting, and so long before spring, the mothers won't have cubs to defend. But Ren's not sure if they've begun to hibernate. Do they hibernate in Maryland? Well, whatever. Plenty else to hunt, too. Deer out the ass in this state. Ren can barely drive through the suburbs where he lives without almost running over a crazy-eyed doe who's trying to cross the road in order to nibble on his neighbor's blueberry bush, and out in the wild, they're bound to be everywhere. And rabbit, turkey. Foxes. 

He's on a fox's territory, the cabin he's rented. The fucking thing was sitting on the porch when Ren first pulled up, hadn't even unpacked, hadn't even gotten out of the car. For a brief moment, they lock eyes, and then the fox bolts. Ren curses his luck, banging the car door open. Not like he can scare it off any more than he already has. He's certain that's the only time he'll see such an elusive little bastard, and of course the gun's in his trunk. He turns his mental focus back to turkeys and deer.

But he's wrong. He sees the fox again just a few hours later, or what he assumes is the same fox. That afternoon, Ren focuses on game birds. When he goes to retrieve the duck he's brought down, the damned thing is already running off with it in his jaws. He shoulders his gun but it's too late, it's disappeared off into the thicket. 

"I'm rusty as fuck," Ren says aloud. It's true. He's been so busy with work that he hasn't gone out for almost an entire year. For the first time in a very, very long time, hunting is not giving him that feeling of balance. He just feels frustrated. 

_Enough. Calm down. You've been driving all day after working nonstop. You gotta ease back into it._

 

He's aired out the cabin, but now that it's clean and brisk and cold, he closes up the windows and starts a fire in the fireplace. He checks and makes sure the chest freezer is properly cold enough to store his prizes, and that the doors all shut nice and secure. It's small, nothing fancy, but there's a fridge and a microwave and a sofa, a tiny shower and a cozy bed covered in flannel blankets, and a little TV that gets basic cable. 

Ren sets his alarm for early the next morning and falls asleep with the TV on, a little white noise to settle him since he's always hard a hard time sleeping in new places. He wakes about an hour before he's planned to, bleary, his hunter's senses telling him something isn't right. At first all he can hear is the soft back and forth of the Golden Girls sniping at each other, and the studio laughter underneath. Then a rustle, a scrabbing sound like a dog's nails on a wooden floor. 

_Something is in here!_

_Something's here! With me!_

Ren sits up. _Mother of fuck!_ His first thought is the window, the window must have gotten open. He's not stupid, he seals up all his food and his trash, even inside the cabin, but something must have smelled it anyway. But there's no change to the warmth of the cabin, no breeze pouring in. He'd feel it. The windows are all shut.

As soon as he sits up, the sound stops. He tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes and something moves, but he can't see what. 

Something must have cast a shadow through the window, he decides. 

He gets up. The floor creaks like a motherfucker, these old boards. No helping it. Ren crosses the length of the cabin--not much distance to cross, anyway--and approaches the window, one hand reaching for his gun. 

There is a face at the window. A human face, white and watching. 

Half of Ren wants to scream. The other half, the one that wins out, whips the gun into position and aims it, but stops short of pulling the trigger. For a split second, he stays in that position, and then, suddenly, he bursts into laughter. 

_Your OWN face, you idiot! It's called a reflection, Narcissus!_

He laughs until there are tears in his eyes. He sets the gun back down, as carefully as he can--he's heard about too many hunting accidents--and then doubles over. He howls like a cartoon wolf, one who's just seen a pretty lady walk past. He beats his thigh with his fist. _Oh my GOD you're so stUPID!_ He really can't stop. 

He sits himself down on the bed, Dorothy and Blanche still nattering away, and when he finally gets control of himself, he wipes his face with his sleeve and decides he's awake for the day. He cancels the alarm he's set, turns on the light, and reaches under the bed to get his clothes for today out of his duffel bag. 

The bag's almost empty. Ren frowns, gets on hands and knees to peer under the bed. He furrows his brow when he sees all his shit scattered, way further than it would have been from just falling out when he stuck the bag under there. It looks like someone has emptied it and spread stuff around, or like someone was looking for something....

The only one laughing now is the TV.

Ren gathers everything out from under the bed, cursing when he sees the dust that's smeared on his socks and underwear and good flannel shirts. What the fuck happened? Something got in here and dug through his shit. What for, though? He didn't have any food in that bag. And how did it....?

"Enough," he says aloud again, and his ribs still hurt from laughing, even though he's irritated now. He wonder what his dad would do? Wouldn't have gone hunting without that big old hound of his, for starters. Chewie would have barked up a storm if anything had gotten inside and gone rooting through his dad's bag. Live and learn. 

Well, for now, he'd do what he could. Ren wipes the dust off his clothes as best as he can, puts everything back inside and neatly zips it shut. He'd thought he'd zipped it last night, but maybe he forgot. He scans the perimeter of the cabin, looking for an entry point. There are some weird loose spaces between the fireplace and the rest of the wall, he thinks, poking at the bricks with the iron poker. As if it didn't fit right, or something was warped from years of weather. That must have been it. He'll find some big rocks from outside and block the fireplace to prevent any more shenanigans. But a voice in the back of his head wonders how something got in through that way and managed to not leave any sooty footprints all over the place, or not get burned on the still-dimming embers.

When he goes out in the first light of dawn, toting his gun and wincing against the bite of the December wind, he spots the gleaming white of one of his clean undershirts caught in a snarl of brambles low to the ground, like something had been dragging it away.


	2. Ours To Make Suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren's father warned him that only strange people live alone in the woods. Seems he was right about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."_
> 
>  
> 
> _"I am a fox," the fox said._
> 
>  
> 
> _"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."_
> 
>  
> 
> _"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."_
> 
>  
> 
> -The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Okay, enough of this bullshit. 

Ren doesn't intend on letting a few small annoying things screw up his whole vacation. He fetches the undershirt back inside, stuffs it back in the duffel bag after shaking it out to remove the little coating of dead leaf bits. He finds a few big rocks, and a few pieces of unused firewood, and Tetrises them together until he's pretty sure the gap in the chimney is fully sealed. He looks at his hands, sooty and dirty, now, and shrugs, wipes them on his jeans. Then he retrieves his gun and gets back out to seek his prey. 

 

When Ren was a little kid, after a particularly successful hunting trip with his dad, Chewie with his head out the window and the back of the truck loaded up with their prizes, he asked if they could live out in the woods forever instead of going back to their house in the neighborhood near his school.

His dad shook his head. "If this were permanent, kid, it wouldn't be such a nice break, now, would it?"

Ren hadn't considered that. "No, I guess not."

"Besides, people aren't meant to live all by themselves out in the woods. We're just visitors. People who live by themselves out in the woods are weird, kiddo. Even if they weren't weird when they started, that isolation does things to a person."

Ren thought about this a lot growing up. His dad's a social guy, loves to schmooze, make friends. Taken out of his social circles for more than a few days, his dad would surely go insane. But Ren's not quite like that. He has long decided he was weirder. Still, his experience with hunting alone has taught him that there was some truth to his father's statement. He's met a few people who live out in the forest full-time, and it's true, they're weirder than even he is. It's like they're something not quite human, like an animal playing pretend at being human.

Take this guy he meets when he sets back out on his way. 'Meets' is maybe not the right word. The fucker's not wearing a hunting vest so when Ren spots something moving, something big, he of course shoulders his gun and takes aim. It's with a pang of both horror and relief when he realizes he hasn't yet shot a person.

"Hey, man, what are you doing?" Ren calls. "Hey!"

The guy turns. If he's missing the bright-orange vest, he at least has the bright-orange hair, this dude. Not as tall as Ren, but tall, narrow-waisted, with big eyes. His expression seems empty on purpose, like he's waiting to see what Ren says before even moving his mouth or cocking an eyebrow.

"Look, I'm not trying to condescend or anything," Ren says. "But during hunting season, you need to be wearing a vest when you walk around out here."

The red-haired stranger offers him a little smile at that. "You think you'll shoot me?"

Ren doesn't like the indulgent, sarcastic way this guy is talking. "I almost just did."

"You're not gonna shoot me. You won't hit me."

"Do you think this is a joke?" Ren can't believe this guy. "I'm trying to give you some friendly advice, okay? I really doubt you feel like heading to the ER during your little nature hike because you thought you were too special to get shot. People are hunting right now."

"I know that." The guy laughs, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I hunt too. I live here."

"You live here?" Ren finds that hard to believe. Even total idiots know this is a hunting area and dress accordingly. This guy doesn't seem to be dressed according to anything at all, certainly not for hunting and not even for the weather. While Ren's bundled up and vested in bright orange, this guy is just in jeans, which look like they've been worn nearly all the way out around the knees and crotch and a thin white cotton tee that's a size or two too big. On his feet, moccasins, not even socks. Probably thinks he's a badass. "Where do you live?"

The guy gestures into the everywhere of the woods, a that-way that could be any number of ways. 

"Well, try and make yourself known, I guess. You don't want someone blowing your head off."

"You're the only one hunting here right now."

"How do you know?"

Only half of the guy's mouth lifts up into a smile. "Haven't seen anybody else around. No one else staying in that cabin. No other cars."

"That doesn't mean--forget it." What's the use in arguing with this guy? Ren turns and walks away, trying to put some distance between himself and the stranger so he doesn't repeat the whole almost-shooting thing again. It makes him nervous, though, to know that the dude is out there. Knows where his cabin is. 

 

He only manages to shoot a single rabbit and it's a terrible shot. The poor thing is still alive when he comes to fetch it. Why was he so much better at this as a kid? When he was twelve, fifteen, seventeen, he had aim like Annie Oakley. Now this rabbit is staring up at him with stupid, pleading eyes, begging for release. He finishes the job as quick as he can and feels only disgust for himself and for the situation. "Kill clean," his dad always said. "We're not torturers. The animals aren't ours to make suffer. Do it right the first time." 

Part of him wants to get in the car right this second and finish out the rest of the week on the sofa back in his townhouse, with cold beer and takeout and endless reruns of M*A*S*H and maybe getting drunk and calling some guy he's fooled around with before and inviting him over. But he's already paid for the cabin rental in full, and for the ammo, and besides, if there's one taste he cannot stand, it's that of defeat. Going home all sad like a kicked dog because, what, he was out of practice?

"The only way you'll get good again is practicing more," he tells himself, fake cheerful, like he's his own Little League coach. "Just keep practicing."

Before heading to bed that night, he double checks the doors and windows. All locked, all secure. He supposes if a bear wants to get in, he's fucked anyway. All his food is tightly sealed in baggies and stored in the fridge or the single cabinet over the microwave. The stones and wood he placed that morning in the fireplace are secure, don't jiggle when he nudges them with the fireplace poker. 

He turns on the TV again, figuring he'll fall asleep faster if he picks the most boring fucking channel. A show where two business analysts discuss stocks fits the bill perfectly, and Ren's out like a light in minutes.

He dreams he's caught the fox, finally. Instead of shooting it, he's set out a snare, one of the old-fashioned ones like in pioneer times. "Please," says the fox. "Please, won't you let me go?"

"No," Ren says. "No, not now. Now I've finally got you--"

"Isn't there anything--?"

Something tells Ren this is a trap. The fox sounds pleading, the way that rabbit looked as it died in his hands, but the rabbit was for real and he doesn't know if the fox is only pretending. The fox has seen so many things die between its jaws that it must know this look so well. The fox must have practiced. 

"What can you offer me?" Ren asks, all bluster. "You're just a fox--just a filthy animal--"

"No," says the fox, but it's not the fox, it's the strange man with no vest, his eyes so large and tinged in gold around the green, his face dreamlike, his wrist caught tight not in the snare but in Ren's powerful wanting grip. "I'm so much more than that. I have so much more to give you."

The man melts softly into Ren's space, into his air, pressing himself to Ren's chest, against Ren's open mouth, and Ren opens wider to accept the strange probing tongue, and his snare-hand loosens and the fox is free, and the fox pushes Ren, who's getting hard now, onto his back and snarls, grinning, teeth bared, grinding his hips down into Ren--

"Such a lovely stranger come to free me," the man says. "Thinks he can kill--thinks he can tame--"

"...of course, if we examine the earnings per share and the P/E ratio, we'll see that the cause of this trend is clear."

Ren wakes. Ren wakes. Ren wakes. 

He's in his cabin and he's by himself and no one is around for miles. The TV is soft but audible, the men agreeing that now is a good time to own stock in Apple products. He's okay. He's alone. Surely. 

He rolls over, slides his arm under the pillow, and his hand brushes something smooth and rounded. Another. Another.

Ren closes his fist around them, sits up, looks at them in the strained television light radiating from the two analysts in their armchairs. 

Three acorns, hidden under his pillow. One two three. 

Ren doesn't fall asleep again until dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness me. Such strange things happen in the woods.


	3. Downwind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not make deals with strange creatures in the woods. Unless, of course, you have no other choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And then in the strange way things happen, their roles were reversed from that day_   
>  _The hunted became the huntress, the hunter became the prey_
> 
>  
> 
> -The White Stripes, "Conquest"

Ren has not thought about the last time he and his dad went hunting together for a very long time. He hates thinking about it. It makes his vision blur and his stomach clench, just imagining that conversation, but lying under the flannel blankets, helpless, three-quarters of the way asleep as the sun begins coming up through the windows of his cabin, he can't find the strength to think of anything else.

He was nineteen and he had just come out to his mother and begged her not to tell, should have known that she couldn't keep a secret. As soon as he and his dad were alone in the truck together, he could tell she must have told him. His dad wasn't mad, which at first seemed like a relief, but then it became clear that he was sad--that he pitied Ren. That was even worse. Ren almost wanted a fight, and if he'd yelled at him, he could have yelled back and let it out. Instead they were trapped in a sort of unbalanced tense weirdness. 

"It's just that I don't get it, that's all," his father had said as he took a turn too hard, sending everything in the backseat tumbling.

"What the fuck's there to get?"

"There's no need to talk like that."

"I want to know."

"I don't know. Forget it. Forget I said anything."

Ren never forgot.

They hunted together that afternoon, saying hardly anything to one another. Ren shot a buck but it got away. His dad had told him, many years before that, that animals have no concept of being shot. They'll just run until they lose enough blood and die. This buck used whatever time it had left to get the fuck out of there. Ren and his dad and Chewie couldn't find it and they started getting on each other's case about it. They didn't agree on which way it probably went. They never did find it and both blamed the other for it. Ren had never hated anybody as badly as he had hated his father on the silent ride home.

After that, Ren just hunted alone. Then he graduated from college. Then he got offered a job as a fundraiser for a major philanthropy across the country and he accepted it and left for good. He sent a Christmas card dutifully every year. His mom called him sometimes. His dad never did. 

 

Ren wakes again around noon. Sunlight pours into the cabin and things look strangely idyllic. The wooden planks of the floor smell fresh and piney, and the naked trees outside seem to shiver and shimmer in the breeze. The TV is still playing. Ren scrubs the sleep out of his eyes, runs a hand through his hair. 

The three acorns are still sitting on the bedside table where he set them down last night. A warning. A reminder. Of what? He doesn't know. But he doesn't like it.

He's gonna catch that fox today. He's going to.

When he pulls open his duffel bag, looking for the white tee he hasn't worn yet, the one that's not greasy with sweat, he can't find it anywhere. He looks two times, three, dumps everything out of the bag. Nowhere. He checks under the bed, peeks outside to see if anything has dragged it away. 

He has a sudden sharp mental image of that weird red-haired guy, standing oblivious in the woods, the hem of that too-big white shirt fluttering in the nasty cold wind...An image of a white face peering in his window the first night he was here...

Thief! Fucking maniac, weirdo living in the woods. Stealing his clothes, spying on him? What the fuck! He'll have this guy arrested--

Ren stops, wipes his mouth with his hand. What's he going to do, call the cops and say, "Hi, yes, officer, I met a stupid guy wearing a white shirt and I don't know what a reflection is? Can you send a squad car up about fifty miles from any town real quick?"

It's so stupid. He picks a black shirt instead, dresses. Bundles up. Hunting jacket, vest, all his ammo. Laces up his boots and tries to pretend his hands aren't shaking a little bit. 

He walks for about a mile and a half, coming to a wide rocky ditch and moving along the edge of it, the pleasant cold smell of the dying earth filling his nostrils. Why would he ever want to go hunting with anyone else, he wonders? This feeling is a gift just for him, something he doesn't have to share with anyone else for miles. The warm sun and cold air, the pleasant weight of the gun...

He's been thinking about getting a dog to come hunting with him. One thing he does miss from his former life is Chewie. He'd get a dog like Chewie, big and furry and lovey-dovey, but good at what he does, too. He'll have to look on Craiglist and see if anybody--

Something tells him to quit daydreaming and he glances around, and there it is, the fox, looking attentively in the other direction. Maybe it's noticed a mouse or something--its ears are pricked and it's tense, poised to jump, but surely it's not him. He's downwind of the animal, and it doesn't seem to notice him at all. At last. At last is his chance. 

Ren takes aim, making sure his breathing is steady and careful so he won't wobble. Steady. Steady. 

He shoots and misses because something is fucking wrong with his gun, something went wrong. Ren's been shooting since he could lift a gun, he knows what the kickback feels like, he doesn't even notice it anymore. This is more than that, it's like getting kicked by a horse. Everything seems to happen in a split second and yet he sees it all perfectly--the fox gracefully bounding away, unharmed, the whacking feeling, the sensation of dropping the gun as he falls--stumbles backwards and rolls down in a bright whirlwind of blinding pain, down into the deep ditch behind him. 

Oh. Oh fuck.

Everything hurts. Everything. Ren groans, trying to identify the main sources of the pain. His nose is the closest one, a headachey pain that steals his breath away, and when he touches the space between his nose and lip, his fingers come away black with gooey blood. When he exhales, it sounds like champagne bubbling. He groans again, working to shove down his panic.

Even more painful is his left leg, a gleaming white pain shooting up from it. When he props himself on his elbows, he gasps. "Shit," he gurgles, now unable to stop himself from freaking out. His first thought is of poseable action figures, or those artists models with no faces, made of wood. His foot has been rotated ninety degrees, so the toe of his boot is pointed sideways. The grotesquery of it makes him want to vomit but he knows it will hurt even more if he moves. "Shit. Shit, shit. Shit!"

He closes his eyes and gives himself thirty seconds to despair. Blood running down his face. Tears running down his face. He imagines the stag, the one he shot almost ten years earlier, dying alone, undiscovered. Running and running until it couldn't anymore. 

He wonders what his dad will think when he finds out he's missing. No one's going to find him for awhile. Well. Maybe. The police investigation will find out that he rented this place, and he told a lot of his coworkers where he was going. He's not even two miles from the cabin. The dogs....

Something interrupts his morbid speculations. Something coming near.

The red-headed dude again. Still in the same clothes. The shirt that has to be Ren's, though of course there's no way to prove that. The dirty, nearly see-through jeans. The worn moccasins. The red hair, blowing in the breeze. He crouches down by Ren, like he's looking at an interesting rock or bug. Looking curious. 

Ren can't believe how happy he is to see him.

"Fuckin' A," he says. "Thank God someone's here. Listen. You have to call someone and let them know what happened to me. Do you have a phone?"

The guy shakes his head. 

"Okay, that's okay." Ren knows how rushed and desperate he sounds, but he doesn't care. He's too relieved. He wipes under his nose again and his whole hand comes away sticky with blood. "I've got one in my cabin. You know where my cabin is, right? You have to call for help. I'll pay you. I have money. I just need to get out of here."

"I can help you," the guy says. 

"Yes, yes. Please. Please go. Please."

"I can heal you right now," he answers.

Ren blinks. "What?"

"I'm not going to use your phone. I can heal you right now."

"What, you have--have medical equipment, or--?"

The guy smiles. "What would you do for me if I just touched you and you weren't injured anymore?"

"Fuck, dude, I don't want to play this game--"

The guy leans in and presses his hand into Ren's face, and Ren gasps, almost screams, but nothing hurts, there's just the muffling gross sensation of all the blood smearing on Ren's face. When Ren reaches up again, when the guy withdraws, there's still blood all over, but his nose doesn't hurt at all. 

"Don't you?" the guy asks.

Ren pants with fear and relief and also with the overwhelming pain of his broken ankle. 

"Heal me," he says. "Yes. You've convinced me. Okay."

"What would you do for me?" the guy repeats.

"I can pay you. Anything. Whatever you like."

"I don't need money." The guy's eyes are so odd in the afternoon light. Green but they seem to shine gold when he looks to the side, holographic, almost. The way animal eyes look in the dark. 

"What do you--?"

"You've been working so hard to keep me out," the guy says, almost in Ren's ear. Leaning down to speak softly, comfortingly. "I want you to let me in."

Ren panics, shuffles, grimaces again. "Stop. You've been--fuck, man. Leave me alone."

The guy moves to his feet, and quick as anything, he is gone and there is a fox in his place, the fox he's been chasing. Springs away, is almost gone when Ren screams. 

"Wait! Wait, come back. Come back!"

The fox turns, pads closer. The full bushy tail swishes against Ren's bare fingers, a tease. Then the fox is a man again, a man with a smirk. 

"Do we have a deal?"

Ren stares up at him. The man is very good-looking, but more than that. He is unearthly. He thinks of the dream he had about him, the way he felt when he dreamed (or did he dream it? He doesn't even know, now) of this man grinding into him, wanting him, wanting to be trapped by him.

"And what if you heal me and I thank you by getting my gun and shooting you?" Ren asks.

The man laughs.

"You won't."

He leans down and gently pushes Ren's foot back into place, so it looks the way it should. Hurts not at all. All the pain that remains in his body is from the little bumps and bruises from rolling down the ravine. Ren is now, he realizes, in more debt than he has ever been in his life. 

"Get up," the man says. "We'll go back to your cabin, now."

"Yes," Ren says. His leg is fine. He is fine. He is fine. 

For the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Ren's really in for it now, isn't he?


	4. Invited Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren is still working out what was a dream, and what wasn't, and what might fall in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head_   
>  _The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> -mewithoutyou, "In A Sweater Poorly Knit"

Ren wakes up not knowing the time or date or location or anything, barely can get hold of the concept that he's even awake. The world is sticky and blurred, and the inside of his mouth tastes like the bottom of a trash can. He swallows, thickly, and it's an effort. The TV is off. 

"I had the weirdest fucking dream," he says to no one, forcing his eyes open. He just has to say it out loud to make it real. 

It's so hard to piece together what was real and what wasn't, because it all felt so realistic. Going out and hunting that afternoon--he was unsuccessful, but then he must have dreamed he saw the fox? Or maybe he dreamed he saw the weird guy, the one without a vest--he dreamed he broke his ankle but the guy healed it or--or the fox did? Maybe?

It is his lack of regular routine, and his lack of communication with anyone at all, that must be fucking with him. Plus, it's December. The days last about three hours this time of year, and it feels like time for bed by mid-afternoon. No wonder his dad said it was bad news to live out here permanently. Long months of work have rendered him completely unable to handle living out in the woods, it seems. Everything freaks him out and unnerves him and makes him feel even more alone, yet also pursued. He's sweaty. He needs a shower.

Ren sits up and looks around. Everything seems as it should be. The gun is put away neatly in the opposite corner of the cabin. No food sitting out. He kicks his duffel bag out from under his bed, looks through it, but everything that is there should be. The four acorns sitting next to the lamp on the side table.

Ren frowns.

Four? Hadn't there been....three...oh, fuck it. He probably had found four under his pillow and just forgot the last one. He wants to shove them all to the floor, suddenly annoyed at the sight of them, but he's still in his grumpy groggy haze and thinks of how the clattering will annoy him even more. Instead, he takes them all gently in hand, crosses the room, wedges open the window and dumps them outside.

Then he closes the window and sets about the task of forcing himself into the shower.

Better than none, he decides, but not much better. This shower was apparently designed for someone around Napoleon's height, and he can hardly turn around without whacking his elbow against the wall. But the hot water feels fantastic against his hot tacky skin, in his dirty hair. God, how'd he get so gross? He just showered yesterday. 

He pushes his hair back, out of his face, letting the water run over his closed eyes, his nose, his chin. 

When he turns, the hot water stings his back and he winces, reaching back to touch the skin over his spine. Hurts. Warm panging discomfort, like IcyHot on a cut. He twists again, feeling like a cat in a carrier, so he can look at his back in the mirror. 

Eight straight thin lines, neon red, are making their diagonal way down his back. He nearly trips over his own feet in the narrow stall, trying to get out of the shower and get a closer look. What the fuck!? 

Upon closer examination there are more scratches--there is nothing else they could be--that have not broken skin, or that have barely broken skin. They are fainter, but they're there. Ren tells himself he's shivering because he just jumped out of the hot shower into the cold close space of the bathroom. 

He comes up with an explanation.

This is what must have happened.

Maybe he did fall down that ditch. When he goes to look, later, his coat is dirty, like he rolled into the leaf litter, into the mud. Okay. So he fell, and scraped himself up, and maybe he hit his head and hallucinated....things...things about the fox or the man, though his mind insists on joining them together into the same being. He must have gotten up and dragged himself home and gone back to sleep. Christ, what a stupid idea. He could have had a concussion and slipped into some kind of coma or something. He's lucky that he's okay. 

Surely that was what happened. 

Surely.

He'd had the weirdest fucking dream.

_The fox, the man, the one and same, he'd dreamed that it had led him home from the gully after healing his leg. He dreamed that the fox had led him by the arm, his grip loose but insistent, and Ren got the feeling that if he had tried to bolt, the fox would spring after him and knock him into the dirt and pin him with that green-gold gaze, with bared teeth. But Ren had felt like he was helplessly hypnotized, content once he let the fox lead him, and he had made no attempt to escape._

_He'd dreamed the fox had taken him all the way back to the cabin, and then smiled, lazy, when they got to the porch._

_"Shall we?" the fox had asked, and Ren nodded, yes, and they entered the cabin. (Maybe Ren had been thinking of vampires, how they need to be invited in? Or maybe strange dark beasts of all sorts need to be invited in.) When they were inside, and the door was shut and locked and the wind was barred outside where it belonged, the fox had stood on his tiptoes so he was level with Ren's mouth and asked, soft as sleeping breath, "Kiss me?"_

_The fox-in-human-form demanded in questions. Won't you let me go? But the fox did not want to be let go. Oh, how badly this fox wanted to be trapped._

_Ren kissed him, unquestioningly. Moved his hands over his narrow shoulders, his slender neck, his white back. Brushed back his hair._

_"I'm so happy you let me in," the fox whispered. "I ran when I saw you pull up in your car, thought you were like all the other humans but--the more I watched you--the more I wanted--God, the more I wanted...."_

_Ren kissed him deeper, with more urgency. He felt bewitched, and because he felt bewitched he loved the feeling. He had pressed his hand harder into the small of the man's back, keeping him closer, and the man chuckled._

_"You did it," he whispered to Ren. "You caught me."_

_"Yes," is all Ren can say._

_The man--fox?--pulled at Ren's shirt but was puzzled by the button, and Ren undid him himself so the man can nip at Ren's exposed throat, his breath searing, but so good. He kisses Ren's neck, his hands lightly skimming Ren's back. Then he scratched harder. Then harder. Then so hard that it really hurt, and Ren cried out, feeling like his head was full of honey, and for some reason it felt so good, why did it feel so good? "More," Ren said, hoarse. "Take me--"_

There is a sound from outside and Ren leaps, panicking, knocking over his little travel-sized bottle of shampoo he stole from a hotel on his last business trip. Knocking. Someone's knocking at the front door. He screws the shower faucet to the left to turn it off, dresses hurriedly. Grabs his gun from the corner of the room before opening the door a crack.

It's the red-haired guy, still wearing the exact same outfit from before. The white shirt is now dappled with some suspect stains of a color that Ren cannot exactly discern. The right knee of the jeans he's wearing has given out, and a thread-rimmed hole has opened up. In his hand he has a dead duck, by its broken neck, and he is grinning. 

Ren is just standing there in the doorway, his hair dripping all over the place and he's gonna catch a chill, the gun in one hand and the doorknob in the other. For a few seconds neither of them do anything, just let the wind buffet them. 

"Thought I'd share," the weird guy says. "Can I come in?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knows what's real, these days. Such uncertain times in the woods.


	5. The Fox's Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren's guest has an offer for him, and refusing may not be the wisest idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh how the river flows_   
>  _Under the ice and snow_   
>  _The keeper of the flame_   
>  _The rose captain knows our names_   
>  _This perfume breath we breathed_   
>  _For you my dear, my love will never leave_
> 
> -Sea Wolf, "The Rose Captain"

The cold wind slices up between Ren and the weird guy as Ren hesitates. He's so cold and wet that he'll do whatever he needs to to be able to shut the door.

"Yeah," Ren says. "Come on. Close that door behind you."

The guy smiles, and does as he's told.

Ren's been dressing birds since he could tie his shoes, and dispatching the duck that the guy is holding out to him comes naturally. If working in fundraising hadn't worked out for him, he could have been a butcher. A little blood has never bothered him, provided that it's not his own. 

"You going to cook that?" the guy asks.

"What a question," Ren says, not even turning around to address him, just focuses on cutting. "Yes."

"Some people like their meat rare."

"Some _people_ , yes." Despite himself, Ren's first thought upon hearing that is doubt as to whether this guy could count as a person. "Not me."

"You're the host," the guy says mildly. 

"Thank you for sharing," Ren answers. "You didn't have to."

The guy is sitting at the table, on the edge of his seat like he's not sure he's allowed to sit back all the way, his legs splayed carelessly, tracing a crevice in the old wooden table with one finger. He tosses his head, letting his hair slip over his ears. "I thought you'd like it. Saw a fox steal a duck you shot a few days ago."

"You did? How do you know that?"

The guy shrugs. "The fox went by with a shot duck and, as I've said, no one else is hunting around here. I thought you might appreciate getting one back."

"I'd appreciate getting that fox more."

This delights his guest, who doesn't bother to conceal his grin. "Would you, now." It's not phrased like a question.

"I would," Ren answers anyway. "This cabin's on its territory, it looks like."

"Mmhm," the guy affirms. "I'm sure you've taken cautions to keep it from getting in."

Ren says nothing, but feels the skin on his arms begin to prickle, despite the closed warmth of the cabin, despite how he's standing over the stove to cook the duck. 

"They're smart, though," the guy offers.

"They're a pain," Ren growls. "I suppose that all the trouble will only make it more satisfying when I finally do catch it."

"You know," the guy says, easy, shifting in the chair to lean on arm against the table. "You haven't said you were going to kill it. You said get, and catch. You didn't say kill. Are you going to kill it?"

Ren says nothing for a few minutes more, finally breaking the silence to offer some of the duck to his guest. "Rare, like you wanted."

Just when Ren's forgotten what a dumbass this guy is, he tries to shove a whole mouthful of duck down his throat when it's just come off the pan. He makes a choking sound that makes Ren panic--Ren was never CPR certified, never learned the Heimlich--and then spits the duck back onto the plate, a thin line of blood and saliva and grease running down his chin.

"You wanna like, let it cool?" Ren asks, a little more sharply than he intends to.

"Hmm. Sorry about that." After a few moments pass, the guy picks up the piece of barely-chewed meat and gives it another shot. This time he gets it down.

"What's your name, anyway?" Ren asks. The guy says something muffled through the mouthful. "What? Fox?" No way this guy's name is Fox.

" _Hux_ ," the guy enunciates after he swallows. 

"Do you live by yourself, Hux?"

"What a question," Hux asks, mocking Ren. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you wanted to know because you have ill intentions."

"I don't have any ill intentions."

"No one comes riding up with a gun who doesn't have ill intentions."

"I don't have any ill intentions for any people. As for the animals, I hunt responsibly. Only in season, and only the amount and species allowed by law."

"I touched a nerve, it looks like," Hux says. "I didn't mean it that way. I hunt too, you know. And if I'm being honest, those laws are bullshit. You should be able to hunt whatever you can catch, whenever."

Ren suddenly comes to the realization that there was no shot to be removed in the duck he just dressed. 

"You've mentioned that," Ren says, carefully. He's cooking his half of the duck a little bit longer, trying to get it just right. "Just you up here, then?"

"Just me."

"Must get lonely."

"Depends."

"Depends on what, if I may ask?"

"Depends on who comes camping or staying out here, and for how long." Hux looks at him, the gold in his eyes catching the artificial light of the cabin same as they catch the sunlight. There's still a shimmer of something on his chin, obscene and fascinating. "I can't tell if you're asking because you want to fuck me or murder me."

"I'm not a murderer. Anyway, you asked to come in, and I just let you. If I kill you, you have no one to blame but yourself. Just like how you were hunting without a goddamn vest."

"You've said a lot about not wanting to kill me but nothing about not wanting to fuck me."

"Was the duck a courting gift, then?"

"In the woods, it's a big deal for anyone to give up his prize."

"Unless you're trying to score a bigger one."

"Do you think of yourself as a prize, Ren?"

Ren pulls a bit of skin from his duck, perfectly golden-brown, exactly the way he wanted it. 

"When did I tell you my name was Ren?" he asks slowly. 

Hux just smiles. 

"So tell me. What are you going to do with that fox when you catch it?" he asks Ren, licking his fingers. 

Ren realizes the answer as he says it.

"I don't know."

There are only bones left on Hux's plate.

"I suspect your luck hunting will turn around when you stop chasing the fox," Hux says.

"What makes you say that?"

"Suppose the fox you're looking for has sway over this part of the forest."

"Has _sway_? What the fuck does that mean?"

Hux is unbothered. "Suppose that, instead of hunting it, you treated it with honor. You gave it minimal tribute. Suppose it was not a greedy animal, and it needed very little. But you gave it those things--a little share of your hunt, a safe warm place to sleep--a safe warm bed, perhaps....and in return you had more bounty than you could have imagined." His eyes flash. "And suppose you did keep hunting it. And then you were plagued with nightmares. And your hunting was dismal. And your car broke down, and your phone died, and you were stranded and hurt and lost in the woods."

Hux daintily picks up one of the duck bones and sets it down again, then licks his fingertips. 

"Is that a threat, then?" Ren asks.

"It's a possibility. One I don't want to think about very hard, either." Hux smiles. "But I don't think it will come to that. I knew what you'd pick from the moment you let me in." He pauses, watching Ren, who is trying to remain expressionless. "I'm so happy you let me in."

 

It's nearly Christmastime. Everyone at the office drew Secret Santa names, and one of the new employees, in an effort to curry favor with her new coworkers, has brought in no fewer than six batches of sugar cookies. Ren takes one from the communal plate as he walks down the hallway to his boss's office, whistling "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" to himself. 

"Come on in," his boss says, gesturing. He's just finishing an email and looks the very picture of holiday cheer, a regular Fezziwig, smiling as Ren sits. "This is a new one, Ren. First employee to get Employee of the Month the day after he comes back from vacation. I mean, true, it was for November, but nevertheless. What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping to take the first week of February off, if that's manageable. I've asked around, and it sounds like no one else has asked for that week." He turns the cookie around, admiring the icing pattern on it.

"Mm, a little taste of freedom got you wanting more?"

"My hunting trip couldn't have been more successful," Ren says with a smile. "This time I'm staying with a friend, and I'm hoping I'll get just as lucky the next time around."

"It's good for a man to have a hobby," his boss says. "Now, myself, I'd rather it be on a tennis court than out in the woods, but to each his own. Yes, I'll put you down for the first week of February..."

Ren returns to his cubicle, still whistling, and helps himself to a bite of the cookie he took.

"You really needed that vacation, huh?" asks one of his coworkers, who has the next cube over. "You've been in such a great mood since you got back."

Ren touches the little acorn that he brought back from the woods with him, sitting on the desk next to his mousepad. A reminder.

Nobody at the office knows he is bruised and bitten under his button-up shirt, covered in love bites, covered in attention. They only know that he returned with as much game as he could carry, and promises to make jerky to share.

"I really did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow wow wow, we've reached the end! Thank you so much for your kind words about this little weird tale. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I liked writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd much prefer a wedding of foxes to the hunting of foxes. But this fox may be more clever than Ren anticipates.
> 
> I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone (oh dear, more hunting metaphors) and contribute to Fox!Hux and stretch my wings with something a bit darker than my regular fluff. 
> 
> Also credit to [saintvader](http://saintvader.tumblr.com/post/154090971963/moodboard-requests-kitsune-hunter-kylux-for), who took the seed of my idea and made an AMAZING moodboard, and got me so I had to write down the first chapter immediately. 
> 
> Let's play on [Tumblr!](http://theweddingofthefoxes.tumblr.com/)


End file.
